WashingtonPost: "Discovery Communications Lays Off 3 Percent of Workforce"

Discovery Communications (aka Discovery Channel) laid off 3% of its workforce but also plans to grow elsewhere. I bring this up because many of my favorite programs (MythBusters, Dirty Jobs, and Deadliest Catch) are on Discovery, as is the very excellent Planet Earth series -- its only fault is that it feels the need to say how great it is.

A positive note in the article is:

Discovery will be hiring for its digital media department, as the company seeks to make its television content available to high-speed Internet users.

Another note from the article is:

Discovery is exploring whether it should get out of the storefront-retail business. The company has 100 Discovery stores around the country. But Discovery pays high rent for premium mall space and is studying whether it could sell its branded products more efficiently with a combination of online sales and partnerships with established big-box retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Target, executives said.

While I enjoy the Discovery stores, I don't think Discovery has quite caught up to the modern era of e-commerce. They're still too focused on selling individual episodes (what casual viewer is going to spend $20 on a single episode?) and availability of their products on sites like Amazon remains spotty.